Mashpee Wampanoag: Tribe leader was arrested on drug charge

Tribe leader was arrested on drug charge
By George Brennan

MASHPEE — The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's recently hired director of child welfare was arrested on a drug possession charge just four months before taking the job, according to court records.

Ronda Jones-Hughes, 35, was arrested Jan. 20 and charged by the Broward County (Florida) Sheriff's Office with possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana, according to records filed online by the Broward County clerk of courts. She pleaded no contest to the charge, according to court records, was ordered to pay a $100 fine, plus a $50 court fee.

Jones-Hughes is still listed on the tribe's website as the director, but a source said she was fired from the $70,000 per year job during a closed-door tribal council meeting on Dec. 29.

Court records show Jones-Hughes was returning from a cruise to the Bahamas when a police dog sniffed out the drugs in U.S. Customs.

In Massachusetts, Jones-Hughes would have been issued a civil citation because the amount she allegedly had in her possession was less than an ounce, but in Florida it's a misdemeanor charge.

The charges against Jones-Hughes were first reported on Reel Wamps, an anonymous blog that comments on Mashpee Wampanoag issues. Shortly after it was reported, the blog was taken down and Reel Wamps launched a website by the same name.

Paul Mills, a tribal elder and outspoken critic of the tribal council administration, said the hiring of Jones-Hughes is an example that tribal leaders are not running the tribe properly.

"We should have a no-tolerance policy in place for something like that, especially for someone working with children," Mills said. "The administration needs to be consistent with (criminal background) checks; everyone hired should be subject to one. That should be a matter of routine."

Tribal Council chairman Cedric Cromwell refused comment through a tribe spokeswoman. "The tribe does not comment on personnel matters," spokeswoman Brooke Scannell said in an e-mail.

In 2008, a tribe member was removed from his job as coordinator of Indian education with the Mashpee Public Schools after it was learned that a drug charge was overlooked.

Repeated calls Thursday and this week to the child welfare office and to Jones-Hughes cell phone listed on the tribe's website were not returned. A woman who answered the cell phone Tuesday said Jones-Hughes calls are now forwarded to her and she can no longer be reached at that number.

According to the tribe's website, the child welfare office provides children and their families with "access to community-based, culturally appropriate services that help them grow up safe, healthy, spiritually strong, and free from abuse." The office collaborates with the state's Department of Children and Families to "prevent out-of-home placement, to maintain family ties and responsibilities, to reunify families and to provide kinship permanency plans for children who cannot return home."

When she was hired for the job, Jones-Hughes, a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, was heralded in the Mashpee Wampanoag's monthly newsletter for being an "active and visible advocate for American Indian children."

According to the newsletter, Jones-Hughes graduated with both bachelor's and master's degrees in social work from Rutgers University. She was also credited with establishing the Red Path Child and Family Agency in North Carolina, a first-of-its-kind placement agency for American Indian Children.

She was crowned Miss Indian North Carolina in 1998, the newsletter reported.

Mills and other elders are also once again raising questions about the tribe's finances in letters to Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

In a Dec. 14 letter sent to Coakley signed by Mills, Ann Peters Brown and Patricia Oakley, the elders specifically question a $17 million loan the tribe has received from Malaysian investors Kien Huat. "The council refuses to produce valid financial reports or the audio tapes of minutes of meetings a concrete proof of government actions and votes," the letter states. "We have no way to stop the spending spree committed in our names while we have many tribal members homeless and hungry."

Scannell declined to comment on the letter but noted that Cromwell has written about finances, including the loan from investors, in the tribe's newsletter.

Coakley's office acknowledged receipt of the letter, but had no further comment. O'Keefe's office said there is no active investigation of the tribe as a result of the letter to his office.

State and federal courts have repeatedly ruled that they lack jurisdiction since the tribe was federally recognized in 2007, making it a sovereign nation with its own government and court.

The latest incarnation of REELWAMPS